A Conversation About An Rectangle-Shaped Grey Box's Game
by Rarefoil
Summary: On one summer day, when Ranma and Akane go to their usual ice cream parlor, the conversation turns to a video game they had both played recently.


Disclamier: I do not own Ranma 1/2 in any way shape or from. That's for Ms. Takahashi and Viz Media.

Thank GOD.

* * *

"I still can't believe ya got me to play that stupid thing."

"You say that, yet you finished the 'stupid thing.'"

"Feh. Just because I did doesn't mean it ain't stupid."

Akane and Ranma were at their usual ice cream parlor, both having decided that they were in the mood for something sweet and soft. Ranma was in his girl form, all par for the course, and at a loss on what to talk about, their minds went to a video game they both had just played.

"Look, why don't you just admit you had fun with it?" Akane said, exasperation evident in her voice.

"It's a waste of time," Ranma said matter-of-factly.

Akane groaned. She was never going to wrestle anything of him at this rate. She tried a different tack.

"Why was it a waste of time, may I ask?"

"Because I can do everything that Crash guy did and better," said a proud Ranma. "Why should I settle for an inferior version of what I do all the time?"

"Because the stakes aren't as high when you play the game." Akane explained.

"Exactly."

Akane had to concede with him on that front. With what she went through on a semi-regular basis, the thrill of playing through _Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back_ just couldn't compare with the thrill of training, watching Ranma battle opponents and traverse obstacles, _herself _fighting Kuno or anyone else and traversing obstacles. But, she kinda liked that too. Being at a safe distance, observing utter danger from behind a screen, watching Crash die a death that had no relevance in the long run, had a strange comfort to it. As if she could stop thinking about the serious stuff and just relax in a simulation that only took the best aspects from all of her heart-stopping experiences.

Still, she probably wouldn't do it again. It was too bizarre at times.

"I know why you liked it so much," Ranma suddenly said with a very smug smile, startling Akane.

"Huh?"

"Since you're a lousy, slow, incompetent fighter, ya can't get the satisfaction of being good at martial arts and beating an opponent, so you turned to video games that can give you the illusion of being great at fighting and skillful with very little effort." Ranma topped off his theory with a self-righteous grin and leaning his head into his crossed arms behind his back.

Akane started to fume at this. Her fists were telling her the merits of giving him a solid trashing for telling her about her lack of ability in martial artist and showing him that she still at least has the ability to break walls with his head, but then a little fact popped into her head that she knew would give a more vicious cut. She grew her own smug smile.

"Little effort, huh? So do you want to explain me how you died around 500 times in all those extra challenge stages if they're so easy, then?"

Ranma's confidence fell fast. He quickly went up close to Akane's face and with a glare, clenched teeth, and a sharp look in his eye, said in a whisper:

"You **promised **me you would never say that to anyone!"

"And did I?" She replied, unfazed.

"No, but we're in public!" He hissed.

"Oh please, will you stop being so paranoid? No one we know is around here anyway."

"_Like that'll matter! _Who knows, Nabiki could be recording us right n0w or the grapevine could talk about a red-haired girl in an ice-cream parlor being mad about having lost you-know-the-number lives in _Crash Bandicoot 2!_"

"Then stop drawing attention, idiot!"

Ranma blinked. He immediately sat down and got himself under control.

"Well, my deaths don't matter anyway. Most of those challenges are just completely crazy."

"Oh, _tell_ me about it!" Akane said. "I really remember that one level in the forth section, what was it called again? Courdi... Haldu..."

"Don't strain yourself trying to say it in English, Akane. I got our version of the game, you saw the name, ya know what we call it," Ranma said dismissively.

"Well, maybe some of us are trying to get extra credit on their assignments with which they could stand to do better in, so they want to make sure that they pass the test!" Akane retorted. "Now what was it...," she began to write on a napkin with a pen she had in her pocket. "Courdi... Haldu... Clashu." The napkin read, in carefully penned-out letters, _Cold Hard Crash_. "That's a pun in English, isn't it," she thought out-loud.

Ranma snorted. "There's always puns in these stupid things. Made for little kids."

"And yet you died a lot in it," Akane said unblinkingly.

"**Akane...**"

"*Sigh* I'll stop. Oh yeah, it was a pun on 'Courdi Haldu Cassh,'" she continued to write on the napkin _Cold Hard Cash._ "It means physical money. Anyway, that was an awful level!"

"Yeah! Did the guys who made that seriously expect me to know where that one box was when it was hidden out-of-sight?"

"And that wasn't the only one that did it! Do you remember the second level?"

"Oh yes, they did it **there **too! And how was I supposed to know that I need to jump into a pit to get to the rest of the level or stand on top of explosives that won't kill me now?"

"Don't forget all those times you have to go backwards," grumbled Akane.

"Argh! What a dumb game." Ranma concluded with, a bit frustration that his vocabulary was so limited he couldn't properly express himself.

Akane thought about teaching him about swears, but quickly dismissed the notion. No need to give the hair-trigger gun even more ammo.

"Still fun, though."

"...I guess."

Akane knew that that was all she was going to get out of him. He was supposedly a men among men, filled with pride and self-assurance and always tried to dismissed lesser things such as emotions. He would never admit to actually liking something outside of his viewpoint, liking something that gave him happiness beside things that were commonplace. Especially to a silly thing like a video game. But she saw his face when he held that controller, and she constantly saw his smile when he was playing. She saw his anger, then saw his satisfaction when he finally overcome that one bit he couldn't get past. It was usually then when he'd stand up and talk down to the console in his arrogant voice, proclaiming him to have defeated the rectangle-shaped grey box's challenge, as if it was a martial artist opponent. She knew how much he had enjoyed himself, and she got great happiness that she was able to give him such an experience.

It started out oh-so-innocently, with her bringing home this thing called a PlayStation she had gotten home from school. She had then asked that she be allowed to borrow the TV for some time during the evenings for schoolwork. This had translated to her playing the English version of _Crash 2_ while taking notes during dinner. She occasionally took a break to eat some of her food, but then she was right back to playing the game. And as Ranma fought off his dinner from Genma, he was noticing her smiles at the game. At first, he was jealous that an electronic could give make her more content than he could. When he thought that, he wanted nothing more than to obliterate that thing for getting the smile that was meant for him, but then he grew curious. How was she getting enjoyment from that strange gray box? Was it really that fun or that great? Intially, he dismissed the notion. Akane was a martial artist, and therefore she got her fun from fighting; he couldn't imagine something that merely simulated fighting being a good substitute. But there her smiles were. Maybe it was a girl thing.

But in the end, he decided to investigate this strange gray box and find out what it did to make Akane happy. So after glancing at Akane's notes to find out what the English game was called in Japanese, he got it in as discretely as possible. And the rest was good fun. After all, the game gave him a challenger, and a Saotome never backs down from a challenge. Not that he would admit that he had fun.

"I kinda liked Coco," mentioned Akane.

"Eh, she did nothing really helpful," Ranma said.

"She let Crash in on what Cortex's evil scheme was!"

"Shouldn't he have known from the start?"

"I think you should know that's it's sometimes not that simple."

"Oh please, in all the times someone has told me they want to bury the hatchet or swear I'm not going into a trap, it's always been a bunch of crap."

"Cynic."

"Well, maybe that's what happens when you've led my life."

"Doesn't sound too pleasant."

"No it isn't. And you should know that by now."

"Jeez, can't take a joke, can you."

"Oh, I can take a joke. That one just wasn't funny."

"Hmph."

The two paused to eat at their sundaes.

"Those jetpack parts can march right out of the game," said Ranma after a bit, with a mouthful of vanilla ice cream.

"Agreed." Akane sighed. Then she started to giggling

"Um, why are you doing that?" asked Ranma.

"Just thinking about all the way Crash can die. They can be pretty funny," she continued to giggle.

"Yeah, but you can't stop them. All of those deaths can't be interrupted, therefore I can't start playing immediately. It's so annoying."

"Oh c'mon, it's all in good fun."

"Yeah, but I'm at my... ...number not important attempt, I'm not in the mood for fun."

_Okay, Ranma had a point there,_ thought Akane.

"And also," Ranma continued in grumbling frustration, "why does this game baby me by giving me health items when I've died... ...number not important times? I know I screwed up, don't patronize me and don't take away the challenge you gave me! It's dishonorable!"

"Right!" Akane said vehemently, digging in her spoon for emphasis. She full-hearted supported that view. The game shouldn't have the right to back out of giving her what she was rightfully earning: the completion of it's challenge, the victory against her foe (in this case, the level).

In due time, they had polished off their sundaes and went out, deciding to just walk home. Ranma quickly doused himself with a thermos of hot water he kept on him, much preferring to be a man, especially when he took walks with Akane. While walking home in silence, Akane decided to speak up.

"You know something I can't figure out?"

"No, what?"

"Why our PlayStation could play both an American game and a local game."

"You mean that shouldn't happen?"

"No, It shouldn't, at least according to the manual that Hinako-sensei gave me along with it."

"The _English_ manual, you mean. Ya probably mistranslated somethin'."

"Actually, they had sections in Japanese, so I could read it," Akane crossed her arms in an I-told-you-so pose.

"Oh. Well, I dunno, Hinako-sensei screwed around with it or something?"

"She doesn't look like the type."

"Okay, then, maybe she spilled some grape juice in the thing and that just happened to get rid of it."

Akane considered this. "Eh, why not."

A little while after that, they arrived at the front gates of their home. But instead of going in right away, they waited outside, just preferring to talk more.

"That thing is going back to Hinako-sensei, right?" Ranma asked.

"It has a name, you know."

"Fine, the _PlayStation_ is getting out of the house, right?"

"Yeah, it is. It's a shame, too. I was having some fun with it," Akane said slightly morosely.

"Well, good."

"You really don't want to admit you liked it too?"

"That's not it! It's just too powerful a distraction."

Akane sighed. "Yeah, you have a point. While I was playing, I could almost feel my strength very slowly diminishing," Akane also felt like she had gotten a bit fatter, but it was only a feeling (she hoped), and she didn't want to start Ranma up on his insults. It had been such a nice day with him.

"See? No matter how fun it is, that thing is a demon that preys on the weak."

_I would say that's an enormous exaggeration, _Akane thought. Then she had a little thought that she just couldn't stop from escaping her mouth.

"Wanna spar with me to help me get my strength back?" _Oh god, why did I say that? Please, please, be in a good mood and say Yes. I really don't want to ruin this-_

"Sure."

"Wha-really?!"

"Yeah." Ranma said half-begrudgingly.

After a while, Ranma become a little more ready to take Akane seriously as a martial artist. He couldn't remember when the thought entered his mind, but eventually, he conceded that Akane might be personally hurt by his refusals to help her excel in her passion. And if there was one thing Ranma didn't want to do, it was make her unhappy. On purpose.

Still, he wasn't just about to start hitting his fiancé.

"I'm still going to not going to hit you, just so ya know."

Akane quickly became depressed. Ranma, seeing this, tried hastily to remedy it.

"Now, wa-wa-wait. I mean, I, um, c'mon, this is a big ask from me!"

"It shouldn't have to be," she slightly whispered.

"Oh, c'mon, Akane! Okay, how about I'll lightly tap you this time, and then we'll work our way up, okay?"

Ranma couldn't believe what he just said. He was promising to hurt Akane? Of all the times his foot _didn't _go into his mouth. How was he supposed to-

She was smiling. Akane was smiling. At him. Not at the game, not at a joke from that game, not at getting one of those collectibles, not at the discovery of yet another one of Crash's many death animations, at him.

Finally.

He decided that the future of possibly harming Akane could be handled when he got to it.

"C'mon, what are we waiting for?" she said with a chirpy voice, already dashing inside. While she really wanted to start seriously training immediately, she decided to take what she could get at the moment.

"Hey, maybe you could teach me how do a slide jump!" Akane remarked.

Ranma started at that.

"Hey, we have not been martial artists since we were 6 just to start taking cues from large orange-furred animals who shake their butts at the camera!" he said while also running in.

_Then again, _Ranma amended in his mind, _that spin move did look a bit useful. Covers a lot of range._

* * *

Partially inspired by the names I entered into save files when I replayed Crash Bandicoot 2. (I own a Japanese version, and I took extra care in spelling Ranma's full name in Hirakana. Just bragging.)

When and if you review this, I would much prefer it that your critique is focused on the dialogue and whether or not it flows well, feels natural, and is in character with Ranma and Akane. I wanna get that down pat and as you probably could tell, that was the focus of this. Feel free to critique anything else you find wrong, though. Please.

If Ranma comes off as a bit inconsistent, switching from saying "Ya" to "you," over and over, I know that he prefers informal language, but complete constant use of it I don't particularly recall him using, not to mention it sounds awkward at points when using "ya" instead of "you."

And yes, R&A do share my opinions on this game. I'm sorry, I just want a button command to skip the death animation after a while. And we would all be happier if the (snotty, mocking voice) "Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment" (normal voice) (as Jason Rubin puts it) could be turned off by a simple difficulty select at the start of the game. Normal Mode has the DDA, Hard Mode doesn't. Because if you select Hard Mode, you know what you're getting into and don't have a whole lot of complaining to do.

Now I shall ponder the blatant hypocrisy I am doing by writing this author note while I usually skip reading these things in fanfiction, mostly because I am either (a) not interested unless I really like the story, and even then (b) I just want to move onto the next chapter with no interruptions of my **immersion.**


End file.
